CDB deserves its own Rubber Dodo award

The Center for Biological Diversity's finalists for its 2011 Rubber Dodo Award include Syngenta, U. S. Rep. Steve Pearce of New Mexico, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

The Center for Biological Diversity, the out-of-whack environmental group based in Tucson, Ariz., will soon announce the winner of its annual Rubber Dodo Award contest.

The CBD established the ridiculous award in 2007 to spotlight the year’s ‘most outrageous eco villain’ who does their very best to ‘destroy wild species and drive species to oblivion.’

The CDB’s self-picked top contenders this year include Syngenta, U.S. Rep. Steve Pearce of New Mexico, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Syngenta gained finalist status as a pesticide manufacturer. The CDB contends Syngenta wants to halt the CDB’s “landmark lawsuit” to force the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to review the effects of hundreds of pesticides on “imperiled species” prior to product approval. The fact is the EPA already conducts countless tests on proposed and current pesticides.

The CDB calls Rep. Pearce the leading voice of radical anti-environmentalism in Congress who works to sacrifice imperiled species including the rare dunes sagebrush lizard for fossil fuel development. Big Oil, the CDB contends, has stuffed Rep. Pearce’s pockets with more than $1 million to choose energy over endangered species.

According to the CDB, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce does more than any other lobbying group to halt efforts to address the global climate crisis. The Chamber, the CDC contends, spends tens of millions of dollars to lobby to protect the interests of huge, polluting corporate interests. The Chamber has opposed ‘bedrock environmental laws, including the Clean Air Act, Endangered Species Act, and Clean Water Act.’

Last year’s Rubber Dodo award recipient was former BP CEO Tony Hayward (I agree with that choice). The 2009 winner was Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (2008). The first winner was U.S. Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne (2007).

If anything, this year’s finalists deserve the “attaboy award” for standing up to environmental nut cakes.

The CDB is the same group that just last month began shipping 100,000 Endangered Species condoms in 50 states to mark the world population reaching 7 billion people later this month. Plainly put, the effort is about reducing mankind so critters, including minnows and other fish bait, have more space to live. In other words, animals are more important than humanoids.

The CDB previously accused Arizona ranchers Jim and Sue Chilton of stewardship abuse on their cattle ranching allotment in Pima County, Ariz. The CDB sued the U.S. Forest Service to end the Chilton’s cattle grazing allotment; claiming the Chilton’s mismanaged the land where the Sonora chub and the lesser long-nosed bat took up residence.

Chilton read the CDB’s claims in his local newspaper, claimed the accusations were lies, and filed defamation and libel lawsuits against the CDB. As Jim Chilton told Western Farm Press last year, “I laid awake at night over all this. I said I’m not a whimp. I’m a cowboy and it’s time to Cowboy Up. I’m taking them on.”

The juries sided with the Chilton’s. The CDB was forced to pay the ranchers $600,000.

If you read this article in time, the deadline to vote on this year’s Rubber Dodo Award is Oct. 12. Note, there is a place on the online-ballot for a write-in candidate,